What Are EU Trade Preferences Worth for Sub-Saharan Africa and Other Developing Countries?

Abstract

This study shows that EU preferences to developing countries were fairly well utilised in 2001, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. For several sub-Saharan African countries, the value of EU tariff preferences, even without accounting for tariff rate quota rents, is worth a significant proportion of their world exports. For non-African Least Developed Countries, in contrast, we find that the EBA initiative was only half-utilised approximately, although it is the only preferential regime available to most of them. It is difficult to reach a firm conclusion since 2001 was the first year of enforcement of Everything But Arms (EBA), and figures for 2002 show utilisation is on the rise, but rules of origin appear to limit significantly the value of this scheme. This also likely explains why the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) scheme is significantly under-utilised in the manufacturing sector, even when the receiving country is not eligible to any other preferential regime.

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